9 January 2014 MTC Provo, Utah USA
Hello
everyone!
This week has been
great!
Like always it has
flown by. And I am so grateful!! I have 11 days left here at the MTC and then I
am off to Tokyo! I should be receiving my travel plans this weekend too! That
is really exciting. I'll know exactly when I am leaving and if I have my visa.
My P-day has changed too. For the last two weeks I'm here it is now on Thursday. Actually, our entire schedule has changed.
It's a little confusing now, and I feel like I've been thrown back to my first
week - not knowing what time anything is, and showing up late for classes or
things I didn't even know were happening. But it's ok...I leave in 11 days!
So this week during
one of our classes we started talking about what the Nihonjin (Japanese people)
think of us Americans. There were two words...any guesses???
BIG and LOUD!
Our teacher told us
that going to Japan you don't experience too much culture shock. But when you
come back home you experience MAJOR culture shock. You get off the plain and
the American airports are overwhelmingly loud.
Dopp Shimai and I
taught an amazing lesson this week! Actually...it has been the only one this
week so far! Thanks to the schedule change things have gotten a little crazy
with teaching too. But, we made our one lesson count. We taught Katayama San
about the atonement, and a little bit about repentance. We taught straight out
of the scriptures. It was great! That is probably my new favorite way to teach.
We've been doing it a lot recently and it works so well. It really invites the
Spirit into our lessons and makes it easy to teach simple truths. We had been
having a hard time connecting with Katayama San too. But, during this lesson I
felt like we made great leaps in the right direction! My Nihongo was really
great too! I said everything I wanted too, minus a sentence or two and the sentences
I wanted to say, Dopp Shimai would say! IT was crazy! In a really good way. We
were super connected during that lesson, and really in tune with the spirit. I
loved it. We are teaching Tominaga San tonight. He wants to learn more about
the atonement too. And we will probably use the same scriptures as we did with
Katayama San, only some different verses and different emphases. Tominaga San
really wants to develop his faith, and learn why faith in Jesus Christ is so
important. Oh, we're using Alma 34. It's a pretty great chapter! (perfect for
someone's scripture study tonight maybe...)
This morning we got to
go to the temple. FINALLY! The temple here in Provo has been closed since we
got here. It finally re-opened on the 6th. It was so nice to get to go.
Everyone in my district is in a good mood now. It's great.
Since we are in our
final weeks here at the MTC, we get to Skype Nihonjin (native Japanese people) during
our TRC time (editor’s note: we don’t know what this stands for). I was so
nervous! But it ended up being ok! The lady we taught told me I had perfect
pronunciation! And she could understand what I said to her! That was a huge
confidence booster!
I am so excited to go
teach the people of Japan. I just love them!
As I was teaching her,
I got a really great confirmation that I'm going where I'm supposed to be
going. And that I'm going for the people.
Yesterday Dopp Shimai
and I taught at TRC again. This time we had a man from Nagoya. He was amazing!
We talked about faith and we read in Ether 12. He had amazing stories! He had
to pick between college and a mission and he chose to go on a mission! And he
said it was the best choice he had ever made. He is in his 70's now and still
hasn’t gone back to school. One of the verses in Ether 12 talks about miracles.
I felt like I should ask him if he had experienced any miracles in his life. He
had! And it was an amazing story.
When he was 5, he had
problems with his kidney (I think kidney failure) and they had been told he
couldn't be helped. His mother had been searching for a church. She met Mormon
missionaries and she took the lessons. She learned about faith and decided that
she had the faith that the Lord could heal her son. So she took him home from
the hospital and prayed for him and he was healed!
Such an amazing story!
Miracles can happen if you just have the faith.
After our Skype
lesson, we were talking to our sensei about how it went. Turns out the man we
were speaking to was the Area 70! We were glad we learned that post lesson, not
before!
We got our Japanese
name tags this week! My last name in Japanese is mo-ri-na-ri. Which, I was
told, translates into loud forest? How cool is that!!!
So here are the funny
stories for the week...
Last Wednesday I woke
up and had hives all over my stomach. By the end of the day they had spread to
my arms and legs. The next morning I was covered! Well, I wasn't a fan so I
decided I'd try to take some Benedryl and instead of taking one pill like I usually
do I decided to take two. I thought it would make my spots go away quicker.
Only my spots stayed. (The next day I used essential oils and they cleared up
by the day after). And the medicine had a not-so-positive-affect on me.
During lunch I
suddenly became REALLY tired and I couldn't understand why. By the time I got
to our classroom, I could barely keep my eyes open. All through personal study
I was struggling to stay awake. Reading my scriptures became really
challenging. And I may or may not have fallen asleep mid sentence... By the
time class started we'd realized what I'd done; Too much medicine! Luckily our sensei
found it pretty funny. And by the time I had to teach, later that night, it had
worn off. Everyone got a really good laugh though. And I have learned my lesson
for sure!
Later that night we
got in our new Kohai (new Japan-bound missionaries). They are a really solid bunch;
9 Elders who all have pretty awesome testimonies. Anyway, as sister training
leaders, we get to do orientation for them (along with the Zone leaders). We
were talking to them, telling them how to be most successful here, teaching
them about the importance of companions, when one of the Elders started to have
trouble with his eyes. They hurt so bad that he was tearing up and he couldn't
open either one of them! Everyone was super concerned for him and no one knew
what had happened. I did! He had first, wiped his glasses with the very fluffy
scarf he was wearing and then chose to wipe his eyes with it as well. I'm
pretty sure that he got fuzz in his eyes...and although I shouldn't laugh at
his pain it was pretty funny.
Last night during our
class the term "mind blown" was used multiple times. I decided I
wanted to translate it into Japanese. I want to say it ended up being "nou
fukurata" demo (editor’s note: demo means “but”) the last part may be
wrong. It is also brain blown not mind blown demo it works!! Anyways, I was
really proud of this so I handed it over to Dopp Shimai. She couldn't figure it
out and proceeded to look it up in one of our dictionaries. The translations it
came up with were hilarious and she could not figure out what in the world I
had written. Some of the words the dictionary suggested were puss and
discharge. Needless to say we were soon laughing very, very hard – silently,
since it was class time. She was so puzzled! So I finally told her.
Our district has taken
up winking at each other. It's pretty funny. What is even funnier though is
when someone gets caught in the cross fire...someone who has no idea what is
going on. It usually results in a very red face...or in Dopp Shimai's case-
some poor elder who spent all of dinner staring at her!
Well, that is all for
now!
I love you all! I love
your letters and dear elders. They are greatly appreciated!
Molinari Shimai
